Peter Gripton 56B

Peter Gripton 56B

24 August 1940 – 5th August 2022

Peter Gripton was born in Liverpool in 1940 and attended the Liverpool Institute Grammar School. As a youth he regularly watched Everton football club playing on on a local ground and remained a Blues supporter all his life. On leaving school he joined the Army as an Apprentice Radar mechanic at the Army Apprentices School in Arborfield. At the end of his apprenticeship he continued his trade training at 5 Training Battalion and on passing his Trade 2 examinations he was promoted to L/Cpl and posted to 94 Locating Regiment in Celle, BAOR working on 3Mk7F motor locating radars.

He had been courting a young lady named Joyce in Reading for a long time and he returned on leave to marry her in August 1962. They then found a small house, where their first daughter Lorraine was born, to rent in Woodley whilst he was a conversion course form Radar to Control Equipment Technician (ECE) at was now the School of Electronic Engineering at Arborfield.

After that we was posted to SEME at Bordon and starting  instructing vehicle mechanics on electrics. Then back to BAOR living in hirings around Fallingbostle and Celle.

After then completing his nine year service he returned to Bordon and stayed on as a civilian and was involved with the computerisation of trade training examinations he and and Joyce added another baby girl Michelle to their family.

He joined a lottery syndicate and was was fortunate to win a substantial amount where his share enabled them to place a deposit on a small house in Greatham close to Bordon. He joined and served with the TA from 1979 to 1986 and was surprised by how how many ex boys he met during that time.

Peter was a life long member of the Arborfield Old Boys Association and became aa regular member at the Annual Reunions. He was elected to serve on the Associations Committee and started on a mission to write and record the history of Army Apprentice Training at Arborfield. What started as a mission to produce a report of some typewritten A4 pages resulted in the culimination of the publication of a massive illustrated tome The Arborfield Apprentice with over 500 pages and 200 illustrations.

After the book was published the AOBA made a major step forward in it’s Old Boys Arborfield Newsletter OBAN changing it from a few photocopied pages to a professional produced full colour magazine. Peter took on the role and thanks to his continuous effort the Association was able to produce three 32 pages and one 48 pages edition each year.

Peter never forget his early years at Arborfield and took great efforts to ensure that as many 56érs as possible would attend the Annual Reunions.

Peter was very interested in his local community and was elected as Chairman of his Parish Council at Greatham. Inspired by his work on producing The Arborfield Apprentice he settled down to more writing and his next was a book The History of Greatham, this was followed by Greatham Memories and a book on REMEs role in the war in Korea and several other small books.

Peter leaves a wife Joyce and two daughters Lorraine and Michelle.

LKA 12Aug22

The funeral will be held at Reading Crematorium South Chapel, All Hallows Road, Caversham, Reading, RG4 5LP on Friday 26^th August at 11.30am.

The family have requested no flowers.  Donations if desired in Peter’s memory to Cancer Research UK may be made via this link https://www.abwalker.co.uk/fund-page/?fp_id=88293